Back when Donald Trump was first named the illegitimate winner of the 2016 election, all Mike Pence had to do was lay low and stay out of the way until Trump was inevitably ousted for his crimes. But for reasons known for certain only to him, and merely guessed at by the rest of us, Pence decided to insert himself square into the middle of Donald Trump’s Russia scandal coverup. Now Pence has a whole new problem.

This week a federal judge ruled that Paul Manafort violated his plea deal by lying to Robert Mueller. In the ruling, the judge legally established that Manafort met with a Russian spy during the 2016 election, while he was running the Donald Trump campaign. Manafort’s life is clearly over. But the real upshot here is that it’s a particularly bad time for any politician – particularly anyone in the Trump regime – to be newly tied to Manafort’s crime spree. Mike Pence is, of course, the king of bad timing.

On top of all of Paul Manafort’s other crimes, his Super PAC apparently received a million dollars just before election day in 2016 and failed to report it, and now the FEC is demanding answers. Okay, so what? Manafort is a career criminal through and through, so of course his Super PAC was some kind of front for criminal activity. But guess who else was involved in Manafort’s Super PAC?

Mike Pence went out of his way to endorse the Paul Manafort Super PAC in question, according to Talking Points Memo. Considering that a Super PAC is just a dirty way for wealthy people to funnel large amounts of money into campaigns, it’s not the kind of thing anyone would endorse. Yet Pence made a point of shilling for Manafort. This came after Manafort went out of his way to convince Donald Trump to pick Pence as his running mate. Mike Pence has a real problem here. Follow the money.